November semi sales hit US$19 billion
This is up 1.3% on the US$18.8 billion in October and 18% on the US$16.12 billion in the same period last year. Sales were up in all geographic regions except the Americas, where sales declined by 1.6 percent from October.
SIA president George Scalise said that the expansion in semiconductor sales was led by strong growth in sales of microprocessors, digital signal processors, DRAMs and flash memory devices. "Sales of personal computers typically peak in the fourth quarter.
Strength in microprocessors and DRAMs indicate PC sales reflect normal seasonal patterns. The wireless handset market has been somewhat stronger than recent forecasts, as evidenced by growth in DSP and flash memory products."
Capacity utilisation however declined modestly in November compared with the previous month, but still remained above 90%, suggesting that the much-anticipated slowdown might not be as severe as expected.
"Actions taken by both customers and semiconductor manufacturers to address excess inventories in some market sectors appear to have been effective," said Scalise. "We expect that excess inventories will not be a significant concern by the end of the first quarter of 2005."
